Tactica Talarius 2ma of ?

This next one is a bit less cut and dry than the three Fs. Initiative control is a reasonably powerful tool in your kit. Explicitly, you want your opponents spread out among a wide array of initiatives. In modern warfare, weapons have the ability to strike a target from such a distance that their transit times can be measured in tens of seconds. A modern military may attack a target with weapons stationed hundreds of miles away from each other, and they practice a doctrine called time on target. Different weapons platforms will fire at different times in order to hit a target concurrently. It turns out that massive damage all at once is more effective than spreading that damage out over time. Now given that your party is often going to be outnumbered by their opponents, it makes sense to do two things: cluster the party’s initiatives by delaying and holding actions, and getting your opponents’ actions as broken up as possible. Now there are shades of grey here. Obviously, if the party all acts on the same initiative, then every opponent gets to act before any party member gets to act again, but there is a difference between acting concurrently and acting one after another all in a row. If your DM uses group initiatives for monsters try to discourage that. It is very easy to subconsciously have every initiative group of opponents act in the same manner and use the same targeting priorities, whereas if the DM is treating all of the initiatives separately, he has to consciously choose to apply concentrated fire on one character at a time. It isn’t a huge difference, but it is one that matters. (also splitting initiatives forces buffers and healers to think ahead. If everyone acts at once , the orc shaman can cast bull’s strength right as the barbarian is plowing into your line, where as with individual initiatives, your opponents must strategize.